live from london, this is bbc news. sir keir starmer says his welfare reforms strike "the right balance" after making concessions to his own backbench mps. speaking to the welsh labour conference, the prime minister said he was committed to making changes. fixing it as a moral imperative, but we need to do it in a labour way, conference. and we will. we have a report from the iranian capital, where a major state funeral is underway to honour military commanders and nuclear scientists killed by israel during its twelve-day war. health alerts and fears of wildfires. much of southern europe is braced for a heatwave with temperatures forecast to reach more than 40 degrees.

and the billionaire amazon founder jeff bezos ties the knot with journalist lauren sanchez in a lavish ceremony in venice. hello, i'm kasia madera. sir keir starmer says there is a "moral imperative" to change the welfare system, despite watering down his initial plans to try to see off a backbench rebellion. more than 120 labour mps had signalled their intention to vote against the proposals in the commons this week. downing street offered significant concessions, meaning that new claimants - not existing ones - would face stricter checks to decide whether they could claim disability benefits. speaking to the welsh labour conference in the past hour, the prime minister said he was committed to making changes. we cannot take away the safety

net that vulnerable people rely on, and we won't. but we also cannot let it become a snare for those who can and want to work. everyone agrees that our welfare system is broken, failing people everyday. i generation of young people writing offer good. and the costs spiralling out of control. fixing it as a moral imperative but we need to do it in a labour way, conference, we will. protecting those who need it most. investing millions in mental health support. reforming our nhs so people are not stuck in waiting less for years on end. building council homes for people to build their lives around. programmes are good jobs to get people back into work and a stronger rights that workers deserve. opportunities, more homes, better support, that is the labour way. applause.

earlier i spoke to our political correspondent charlotte wright. and i think ministers think that they have got the numbers. they think they can quell this rebellion. they think these concessions that they've put forward are enough. but that said, there are a number of backbench mps who are still very unhappy. they're unhappy with the way number ten have handled this and they're unhappy with the concessions themselves. we've also heard from the charity mind who say that these these concessions create a two-tier system. it's something that the labour-affiliated trade union unite agree with. they've come out today and said that it's divisive and sinister, these concessions. so there are concerns that this creates a two-tier system. it's difficult to tell at the moment how many backbench labour mps agree with that, and how many of them are happy with the concessions that the government has made. that's because there are a number of different groups within labour who have been part of the rebellion. there's not one big

overall leader of them. that makes sense, so it's tricky to know at the moment. we'll find out in the coming days, but certainly there will be a lot of phone calls between ministers and backbenchers between now and tuesday. and something else people are going to want to know is how this is going to be paid for. harry mentioned the possibility of tax increases. is that likely to be on the table? well, the government hasn't ruled it out. so i think it is looking increasingly likely at the moment or freezing tax thresholds. the government could also look at cutting other budgets as well. but of course, this is a saving that the chancellor had predicated her spending plans on. and the spending review was based on making £5 billion worth of savings, which she now won't be able to make. she'll make less than half of that. so there is a black hole in the budget. she's going to need to find the money somewhere. and it does look increasingly likely that, in the autumn budget, when that comes, there will be tax rises. huge crowds have gathered in tehran for a state funeral for those killed by israeli strikes this month.

60 people, including military commanders and nuclear scientists, were killed during the 12-day conflict with israel. among those being laid to rest was mohammad bagheri, the highest-ranking military officer in iran who was chief of staff of iran's armed forces. ahead of the event, a media campaign urged people to participate, with authorities providing free bus and metro rides. our chief international correspondent lyse doucet is in tehran covering todays ceremony. she is being allowed to report from there on condition that none of her coverage is used on the bbc's persian service, which broadcasts to the people of iran. this law from the authorities applies to all international media agencies operating in iran. i define your moment for the islamic republic of iran. morning close distance but also anger and defiance. these are the soldiers of the revolution,

the islamic order's most loyal supporters, chanting, death to america, death to israel, holding the flag high, waving photographs of some of top military commanders, leading nuclear scientists assassinated by israel in their 12 day war. they remain intensely loyal to their leaders at a time when iranians across this country are confronting new dangers and new questions. the relationship of the wider world and what is the best way forward. this all comes as president trump says he would "absolutely" consider bombing iran again should intelligence show the country could enrich uranium to concerning levels. the us became directly involved in the conflict between israel and iran last weekend, striking key nuclear sites with bunker-buster bombs, before the president sought a ceasefire. in a speech, iran's supreme

leader said the strikes had achieved nothing significant, but mr trump repeated his claim iran's nuclear sites had been "obliterated". at a white house press briefing, our north america correspondent nomia iqbal put this question to the president. if the intelligence reports conclude that iran can enrich uranium to a level that concerns you, would you consider bombing the country again? without question. absolutely. and have you had any...? turned out to be unbelievable. but, you know, our incredible flyers and our... i call them the shots. these guys are unbelievable. from 52,000ft, they hit the equivalent of a refrigerator door. they actually hit it right in the centre. so it's much smaller than that. and just bomb after bomb, going deeper, deeper, blowing up. incredible, incredible. an israeli newspaper report saying that soldiers

were ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians waiting for food aid in gaza has been strongly rejected by israel's prime minister. the head of the organisation distributing aid has denied that hundreds of deaths from shootings are linked to its collection points. from jerusalem, lucy williamson sent this report, which includes images you may find distressing. to make gaza's aid more secure, israel told gaza's people to walk through a war zone to get it. translation: this is a death trap for us. this is not aid. this is the road to death. i don't want to eat if i'll be shot at. gunfire. footage from the first days of gaza's new privately-run aid system showed chaos near the distribution sites. screaming. hungry crowds pinned down by gunfire. the un says more than 400 people are reported to have been killed by israeli forces near the site in the first

month of operation. abdullah al-najjar was injured near one site last week. translation: i was going to bring food to my family, to my siblings. we got injured. there was a lot of fire. its food was the taste of blood. translation: i plead with everyone not to go to the aid sites. every day we face the same scenario. martyrs, injuries and numbers that we can't endure. the hospitals cannot process all the injuries they receive. the head of the gaza humanitarian foundation told the bbc his operation was not connected to the hundreds of deaths and accused the un of misinformation. we're not denying that there are casualties in the gaza strip. we're not even denying that there are casualties within proximity to aid distribution sites.

what we're saying is 100% of those casualties are being attributed to close proximity to ghf. that is, that is not true. 100% of the casualties are being attributed to the idf, as best as we can tell, that's also not true. israel's army strongly rejected a local media report that soldiers had been told to fire on unarmed crowds and said incidents were being examined. its prime minister, benjamin netanyahu, said the media accusations were contemptible blood libels and malicious falsehoods designed to defame the idf. after a two-month israeli aid blockade, hunger drives many decisions in gaza. drives crowds to surge towards the promise of food, risking death to stay alive. sirens blare. lucy williamson, bbc news, jerusalem. now it's time for a look at today's sport

with mike bushell. it's one of the most eagerly awaited contests in international rugby and it's underway, when the stars of england wales scotland and ireland join forces to form the british and irish lions and play against the southern hemisphere giants, the history and tradition ensures that it's always box office. for the first time in 13 years, the lions are in action on australian soil and they've kicked off against western force in perth and it's currently 7-7. we're still over three weeks away from the test series against the wallabies, and this is the first of five warm-up matches, around 40,000 lions fans are expected to travel to australia in the coming weeks. the under-21s men's euros reach their climax tonight, with defending champions england versus germany in the final. england lost to germany in the group phase, but have since been impressive in knock-out wins over favourites spain, and the netherlands, so this time they won't fear

the germans. england's senior manager thomas tuchel, who is german, will be in bratislava to watch the final. big news ahead of the women's euros. spanish midfielder aitana bonmati, ballon d'or winner for the last two years, has been hospitalised with viral meningitis less than a week before spain begin their campaign. she missed yeserday's 3-1 win over japan in a friendly as spain continued building up to their first group b match against portugal on thursday. bonmati shared a picture of herself watching the match from a hospital bed in an instagram story. her coach said, "she is a very important player for us. we'll wait for her, as long as we can." the pursuit of brentford's top stars has intensified. manchester united want striker bryan mbeumo, but their second bid of over £62 million has been rejected by brentford, who have made keith andrews their new boss. united may face competition from elsewhere,

with new tottenham manager thomas frank keen to be reunited with mbeumo, while there has also been interest from other champions league clubs. talks between manchester united and brentford are continuing, with the player himself reportedly wanting to join the rebuilding at old trafford. plenty of drama off the track in formule one in austria this weekend, where mercedes team principal toto wolff has admitted he is exploring the possibility of signing four-time world champion max verstappen. you earlier in the day, george russell said his contract talks with mercedes have been delayed because of the ongoing conversations with verstappen. wolff denies that but says russell should use any scrutinty and speculation taking place off the track to help his performances on it. you know, this pressure, constant pressure, whether you are in the car or outside, you need to cope with that. and george knows that. like any other driver knows it. i feel

that when you are being put in a comfort sound, sometimes that is actually more detrimental to performance. russell was sixth quickest in second practice, that was dominated by the two mclarens - lando norris was a fraction quicker than his team-mate and championship leader oscar piastri. verstappen was third fastest in what is red bull's home grand prix. we are two days away from the start of wimbledon, and the 23 british players in the first-round singles all know their opponents now, and what a draw it was for british wildcard, teenager mimi zu, who will play her role model emma radacanu. she couldn't believe the reaction to the draw on her phone. i was moving to my air b&b 10:05pm, got a message from my coach saying what amazing draw, so exciting. i haven't seen it. my mum is getting messages saying, such an exciting draw, a good draw for her. and i

like, whom i playing? i am scribbling, trying to find out. i dancing that i am playing mr. i am really confident in my game at the moment, confident in myself, i am ready to go out and embrace it and enjoy on moment. -- enjoy every single moment. and that's all the sport for now. here in the uk, temperatures could hit 30 celsius today amid the second amber heat health alert in two weeks. the alert, which covers london, the east midlands, south east, south west and east of england, will last until 6pm on tuesday. it's a similiar story across much of southern europe as a punishing heatwave continues. the heat is spreading from the iberian peninsula across to the balkans and greece with temperatures topping 40 celsius, prompting health warnings and fears of wildfires. in italy there are red alerts for 21 cities, including rome, milan and venice. people are being advised to stay indoors

between 11am and 6pm. france has been gripped by its 50th national heatwave since 1947, for more than a week now, and four regions in the south of the country have been placed under an orange alert. in spain, emergency medical staff are on stand-by to deal with an expected surge in heatstroke cases, particularly among vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly and people with chronic illnesses. earlier, i spoke to our correspondent guy hedgecoe, who is in madrid, about the heatwave concerns across spain. i'm in the capital, madrid, where we're expecting temperatures to rise to the high 30s later on today, and for that to continue throughout the weekend and into next week. but it's down in the south of the country where we're expecting the highest temperatures, certainly today and tomorrow. for example, in the guadalquivir valley and the city of seville, we're expecting temperatures of around 42 celsius later today and tomorrow. and we're likely to see those

sort of temperatures also in some other areas in the southwest and the northeast. so these are extremely high temperatures to be seeing in the month of june. this is partly explained by a mass of hot air that's pushing up from north africa, and that's something which often happens and which is often a cause of heatwaves here in spain. so the whole country is bracing for extremely high temperatures for the next few days. and in terms of weather warnings and alerts, what are people being advised to do? well, the alerts in terms of health are what we always hear around this time of year from the authorities, local and the central government, which is, for example, to stay indoors, or at least out of the sun where possible, during the hottest times of the day. they point out that elderly people, people with underlying health problems

are at particular risk, so they need to take particular care. and, obviously, there's general advice about drinking lots of water. there are also warnings in place, alerts in place, regarding wildfires, like those wildfires we saw in greece. obviously, that 's a concern for countries like spain and other countries across southern europe, so fire services are on high alert at the moment because of the risk of wildfires. the new head of nhs england has criticised the health service, claiming that it keeps the public away and patients are seen as an "incovenience". sir jim mackey made the comments in an interview with the telegraph. our correspondent barry caffrey has the details. some people will be quite shocked by what was said in the interview by sir jim mackey on the front page of the telegraph this morning. he said that the health service had made it really difficult

for patients to get the care that they needed. he said the health service was often deaf to criticism, spent far too much money and, in some cases, operated in a fossilised way - ways of working that had not changed since 1948, since the nhs was founded. he said, and i quote, "it feels like we've built mechanisms to keep the public away because it is an inconvenience", warning that too many patients were left ringing a number that no-one even answers. sir jim warned that the disconnect between nhs services and the public could result in the loss of the public health service altogether. he said the big worry is if we don't grab that and we don't deal with it at pace, we'll lose the population. if we lose the population, we will lose the nhs. now, sir jim ran one of the nhs's most successful hospitals for 20 years and in the interview he said he was driven by the poor experiences of his own family at the expense of the nhs.

his dying father suffered terrible care at the hands of the nhs, and that was back in the 1990s. and he said since then far too little has changed. next week, the government will publish its ten-year health plan that promises three major shifts in the way the nhs operates - from analogue to digital, from hospital to community and from treating sickness to prevention. we'll get all those details of that ten-year plan sometime next week. jeff bezos, the founder of amazon and one of the world's richest men, has married the former journalist lauren sanchez in venice. the event is reported to have cost around $46 million and was relocated from the city centre after protests from venetians. the celebrations are expected to last all weekend and have attracted many high-profile celebrities. our correspondent sarah rainsford is in venice and told us more.

there's definitely some protest here in venice about this wedding. i mean, look at this backdrop. it is absolutely beautiful. and that, of course, is why jeff bezos and his now wife, lauren sanchez, chose this italian location, this destination, for their three-day wedding ceremony. we actually don't think this was the wedding itself. we think the actual proper nuptials happened in the united states. but this is where they've had the three-day party with an a-list guest list of celebrities, stars, particularly from the united states, so there are paparazzi all over town trying to snap pictures of them as they climb onto the water taxis and dot around this city, as they arrive in their mega yachts and their private jets. this is a big event for venice, and that's why there is this protest. because this is an extremely, extremely fragile city, an ancient city on the water, as you can see, of course, and as everybody knows, but a city that is sinking. it's a city where there is a massive amount of tourism and the protesters are protesting about all sorts of things.

they're worried about climate change, they're worried about the impact that massive businesses like bezos's amazon company have on climate change. they're worried, too, about locals here in venice being forced out of this city and cities across southern europe by overtourism. so they're protesting against that. and particularly, lots of the protesters that we've spoken to have talked about this idea of using cities like venice as a theme park, as a backdrop, as a pretty, in fact, stunning setting for a wedding, but not caring about the city. now, mr bezos has basically hit back against that by saying he is donating $3 million, we believe, to a variety of causes, including a local charity that's working to protect this city, and also the un agency, unesco, that works to protect cultural heritage. so there's sort of a bit of a hit back from the wedding party, or the wedding man himself, the guest of honour, the groom and his bride, saying that this is not about exploiting venice but it is about putting a focus

on a beautiful city which, of course, as you can see, is utterly stunning. two brown bears which were rescued from captivity in azerbaijan have been released into a sanctuary on the isle of wight. the brothers, benji and balu, are believed to have been confined inside for almost all their lives. our reporter, sarah farmer, watched them take their first steps in their new home. a new-found freedom. oh, my word. he's out. oh, wow. benji was the first of the rescued bears to step out into their new enclosure at wildheart animal sanctuary in sandown. do you know what? he just walked through a load of wild flowers, which is the first time he'll have done that in 13 years. his brother baloo

tentatively followed later. all they've had is a bucket of water to stick one paw in at a time all their life. and look at that. he's walking down the stream. first time he would have ever encountered running water in his life. they've never exercised. you think you're in one room your entire life, you imagine that you've got no muscles. you're unfit. so all this climbing over logs are going over the mounds. swimming in the ponds. that's fantastic for them. how precious is this view? yeah, it's... it's more emotional than i was expecting. the european brown bears were brought over from azerbaijan just two weeks ago, where they'd been taken in by the authorities. it's believed they'd previously been a tourist attraction outside a restaurant. since they were cubs. the bears were loaded into cargo containers and flown into glasgow. once in the uk, they were driven all the way

to portsmouth before crossing the water on the wightlink bound for the isle of wight. today's release into their forever home is thanks in part to sponsors and volunteers like john. i have swung the hammers to knock down an old building that was in there. we then moved rocks. the next job was to clear all the vegetation, which was a minor jungle. john donated the seven webcams which are being followed across the world. i understood that there would be many people on the island enjoying the cameras, but when i was getting emails from people in the states, in europe, in africa, just blown my mind. they've been sat in a cage for over a decade, staring out at the world, not being able to be part of it. and now, for the first time, they can go out here and just experience all those things first-hand. what must be going through their mind? it's freedom, isn't it?

this is bbc news.

the headlines... sir keir starmer says his welfare reforms strike "the right balance" after making concessions to his own backbench mps in a bid to avert rebellion by more than 120 labour backbenchers. speaking to the welsh labour conference, the prime minister said he was committed to making changes. we have a report from the iranian capital, where a major state funeral took place honouring military commanders and nuclear scientists killed by israel during its 12-day war. health alerts and fears of wildfires as much of southern and central europe is braced for a heatwave with temperatures forecast to reach more than 40 degrees and a surge in heatstroke cases expected. and the second full day of glastonbury festival is well and truly underway, with neil young, doechii